Cross Country Selection Trial to pick teammates for Pushpakumara

by Reemus Fernando

Sri Lanka Athletics is set to select a five-memberteam for the 3rd South Asian Cross-Country Championship to be held in Islamabad, Pakistan in March.

The team will be selected based on the performances at the National Cross Country Selection Trial which will be held at Diyagama on January 20.

The trial will be organized by Lanka Lions Sports Club.

“We will select a team of five athletes. Two athletes will be selected for the senior team and three athletes for the Under 20 men’s event. R.M.S. Pushpakumara, who has won a number of events during the last year, is the first choice. The competition will be to select the second athlete for the senior event,” Saman Kumara Gunawardana, the secretary of Sri Lanka Athletics told The Island.

“Three athletes will be selected for the junior men’s event,” he said.

The selection trial for the senior event will be a ten kilometers run while the Under 20 men’s event will be an eight kilo metres race.

Incidentally, only a men’s team will be selected at the selection trial. Sri Lanka Athletics sources said that the Pakistan organizers of the South Asian Cross-Country Championship had scrapped the women’s event from the regional championship.